Social interaction 0, Me 187

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 13
12:42

Social Interaction 0, Me 187

Approaching the four-month anniversary of our move to Minnesota, and I think I've broken a record. In these 16 weeks, I haven't interacted with a single person in any sort of social setting that didn't involve work, Airika or dogs. Haven't even approached the possibility of new 'friends' or even 'acquaintances'. Is this a good thing? Probably not. Turning myself into the Unabomber isn't exactly something I'm aiming for.

So while it may not be a good feat, it IS special. After all, I'd like to see any of YOU try it, what with all your 'social skills' and 'small talk abilities' and 'friendliness'. People. Who needs 'em?

I've pulled off the amazing. Just like the Detroit Lions.

And now, a fat-ass squirrel.

Good lord, it's here

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 12
1619

It snowed a little bit today. And it doesn't seem to be stopping.





But at least the dogs had fun.


Tilly takes refuge.

Far beyond frozen

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 11
12/18/08
1232


Urban homeless people refer to winter as The Wolf because of the remorseless way it chews you up and spits you out. Here in Minnesota, the Wolf is finally upon us.

Cold doesn't even approach describing exactly what the last few days have been like. Freezing doesn't quite get there, either. This kind of cold just bullies you, slaps you in the face and sits on your chest, reveling in the fact that there ain't a damn thing you can do about it.

Saturday afternoon, it was 47 degrees at 1pm. By 4pm, we were down to 19 degrees. By seven there were no degrees at all. To recap: We had a 47-degree temperature drop in six hours. It was amazing. I literally watched as the mercury fell. It was so cold these last few days that today's miraculous heatwave, a jump to the sweltering 12 degrees, felt like one of those random 45-degree days in Ohio in February. Running errands this afternoon, I left my coat unzipped. Too sweaty. Of course, the temp seems to be dropping again as I type, and more cold and snow is on the way.

This kind of cold plays on my mental health. Too many things go wrong in the cold. Water flash-freezes. Pipes burst. Electricity stops with no warning (like it did to us on Monday, the coldest night of the year - my birthday. Thank god for a fireplace and two warm dogs). Cars fail to start, garage doors fail to open. It's like the molecules give up and go to sleep. Not good for my mindset, wondering every morning if I have to get up and jump vehicles.

On the other hand, these frigid conditions make for some beautiful images. The entirety of the outside is nothing but crisp white beauty. The snow doesn't melt and make everything a sloppy gray, Ohio mess. The extra fluffy snow (so far) is worth the effort. Tuesday night we saw four-inches dump on us during rush hour. That kind of bulk usually makes for some gut-twisting, knuckle-whitening drives, but the snow had nothing to stick to. There was a ton of it on the roads, but it was just bouncing around. Getting out of your way, almost...polite. It was like driving through herds of tiny sheep, or stepping through a thick blanket of dry-ice smoke. Bizarre and hypnotic.

The animals have vanished, which makes me sad. Sure, the lack of deer everywhere makes for some undisturbed, picturesque landscapes, but I actually worry that they're ok. Nothing is meant to survive long in this kind of weather. Even Tilly, the biggest proponent of the outdoors I know, refuses to go out there. Dragging here by the ears to the door for a pee-break gets old. Germans, it seems, aren't big fans of the cold. Who knew?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go give the cars a precautionary afternoon starting. Just to wake the molecules.

Thankful all THAT's over

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 10
11/27/08
1345

Thankful all that’s over…

Thanksgiving Day is the end of a kinda-crappy couple of weeks. After spending 31 years displaying an immune system that would make Superman sniffle, I’ve been sick on and off for almost a month now. Thanks, Minnesota! Or more specifically, Thanks, casino! Or even more specifically, Thanks, cornucopia of random Asians and your exotic Far East diseases! My last month has been a Bouillabaisse of snot, cough syrup, in-and-out voices and weirdly sore body parts. I am proud to say that my lifelong streak of never puking due to illness is intact. Small victories.

In addition to my constantly fluctuating health situation, we’ve had the usual Gibbs family random problems. Three weekends ago, my ‘new’ vehicle made its inaugural trip to the gas station only to spit 10 gallons of fuel on the ground faster than I could put it in the tank. This would explain why the bastard was on ‘empty’ when I drove it home. Nothing like being stranded two miles from your house on a 20-degree morning while you wonder whether or not you’re going to blow up.

So I get that squared away just in time to discover that the mysterious water tank in my basement is slowly seeping water. And then not-so-slowly seeping water. Get my landlord over to look at it before the bottom drops out and unleashes 60 gallons of unfiltered well water all over my comic books and pretty much all my other cool possessions. The plan was to simply drain the tank, then cut it out of the plumbing loop because it really seemed to serve no purpose. Of course, we find that the plumbing in this place was done by ‘some dude’ and made no sense whatsoever. Pipes come in, pipes go out, pipes do loop-the-loops. My utility room is a cross between one of those warehouses in ‘Saw’ and some kid’s ultimate wet-dream Hot Wheels track, only I don’t get the fun that comes with torturing Donnie Wahlberg or smashing little race cars. I just get pipes, rusty water and a race against time.Eventually, we decide to call in a plumber, which is a pain in the ass because I’m never home and/or awake at Normal Human Hours.

Anyway, we get that done and it doesn’t cost me anything. Then yesterday I decide to fix the downstairs bathroom faucet that’s been dripping. Easy fix. Done it a 100 times, because I’ve never had the luxury of living somewhere with decent plumbing. As I’m shutting the hot water off, I accidentally torque the pipe and start an additional leak. Awesome. Nothing like making a little problem a terrible calamity. Plumbing is not my friend.

But today is Thanksgiving. As far as I know, there’s nothing leaking anywhere and for the first time in months, I really don’t have much to do. Airika’s attempting a Thanksgiving feast, there’s good music flowing from my iPod, I have a big pile of comic books, magazines and a novel waiting for me and pretty soon I’ll get a fire going in the fireplace. The dogs are in the kitchen, at the ready in case any stray turkey bits hit the floor. The deer are outside, scarfing corn and looking around like nervous deer do. And my bodily fluids seem to have congealed like day-old gravy. It’s a good day.

By Oden's Beard

I present to you my new pal Oden, a 1992 Chevy Trailblazer. Oden will be making sure I get up and down my dirt road all Terrible Winter long. He is named after Greg Oden because they are both Blazers and both are a little rusty and both will likely have shortened careers due to some catastrophic physical breakdown.

Constant Updates

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 9
11/12/08
1500

Constant Updates….

Things are finally settling down here. After almost three months of getting settled (house stuff, job hunts, winter preparation…), we’re finally at a place where it’s just…normal. Just in time for the Big Bad Winter.

The last two weeks were all kinds of rotten. I officially started a new job (www.confluencemarketing.net – check it out!), had to put in a week of intense training at the casino (if you ever play Three Card Poker, you are a loser), bought an old 4WD truck, all while getting things in order for winter, being horribly sick and staying out of Airika’s way as she crammed for her Minnesota State license test. It was kinda hectic.

And just when things started easing to a halt…this:

Luckily, I am now prepared. Bring it on, you old bastard:

I did manage to get out and take some pictures with The World’s Oldest Digital Camera. Here’s a few snaps from the main (only) road between us and town. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d have done this when there were still some leaves on the trees. It’s quite picturesque around here in the fall. Too bad I missed it…

About five miles from home, there's this farm set in possibly the best location ever. They've got the bluff in the background, a lake in the foreground, and it's all framed by the railroad tracks. Just friggin' beautiful. I wish I had a wide-angle lens to really do some justice here.
Some bluffs. First one is Barns Bluff, which sits 350 feet above the earf, but it seems much higher when you're up there. This greets us every time we head into town. Halloween night, some jackass set it on fire. It was something to see, flames reaching for the sky as I drove to work at 2 in the a.m.

Not sure if this one has an official name. Airika calls it Cecil. I'd ask why, but I'm not sure there's a reason.

Here’s possibly the last sunset I’ll be snapping till May. I mean, I have to trudge ALL THE WAY into the driveway to get shots like these. Not quite worth it when it snows.

Of course, I can’t get out of here without a critter update. I’ll run it down checklist-style:

-Tilly very nearly caught herself a turkey. She took off into the woods and all I heard was a surprised turkey guffaw before seeing the silly bird fly-crashing through the woods, snapping Weimeraner in hot pursuit. If you’ve never seen a wild turkey flee for its life, let me tell you: high comedy. Tilly, as always, is a failure as a hunter. She can’t climb trees:

-We’d been here two and a half months, and never laid eyes on a coyote. HEARD the bastards often enough, always at night as a herd of the yipping and chittering cretins mauled a rabbit or turkey or badger or something. But they remained unseen until this past Monday morning. We’re getting ready for work on the morning of the snowstorm, looking out our kitchen window when this big, ugly prick trots out of the woods in broad daylight and more or less stops in the front yard. I swear he looked right at us, saying, “Yeah. This is MY house, bitches.” Then he ambled off without a care in the world. I couldn’t produce the camera fast enough, sadly.

-Finally, my obligatory deer picture. This one was taken through a filthy window with a shitty camera, so there you have it. These three are regular visitors. They seem to dig the whole corn I throw out for ‘em. I believe these three are named Tooty, Frooty and Kat Von Deer, but I wasn’t close enough to be sure.

Sick and tired

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 8
10/30/08
0500

I’m sitting here at 5 a.m. in a Benadryl haze, looking out into the frosty Minnesota dark. For the first time –literally- in my life I’ve left work early, just too sick to go on. It’s just too hard to deal cards when they’re covered in snot. My body feels like it’s just been thrown a blanket party, my head feels filled with sand, and there’s just one thing on my mind: Winter is coming.

It was cold last night, that shocking kind of cold that takes your lungs by surprise. Autumn here crashed quickly, came and went before it ever really started. One day the trees were full and green, the next they were empty. It was like the earth simply shrugged out of its clothes. The bare trees have made the drive into town a different experience. Entire neighborhoods that I didn’t even know existed revealed themselves once the leaves were gone. A world beneath the world. I even discovered that I have a neighbor. One day I looked into the woods behind my garage, and hey, there’s a house across the ravine. Suddenly I wonder about all those times at 2 a.m. I was naked on the porch screaming at dogs.

Winter is coming. The people around here are quietly battening hatches. Plastic is going up over windows. Plows are appearing on the fronts of every third pickup. Pyramids of deicer suddenly pop up at every retail outlet. After a few easy winters, the Minnesotans are smelling a bad one. I’m getting a lot of ‘New to the area?” followed by smirks and giggles. C’mon. It’s not like we moved here from Arizona. I know about winter.

Still. There’s things I need to do. Hatches of my own to take care of. Just secured a nice 4WD beater to buzz around in for the next few months. It occurs to me that I need a chainsaw, because if a tree goes down on the road back here, we’re pretty much fooked. And I’m swallowing my pride and getting a snowblower. I’ve always scoffed at those douchepackers in their little suburban developments, blowing the snow off their 13-foot patch of concrete, vowed to never be one of those. Well, this ain’t no development. However the hell I get down my .6 mile of dirt road, a shovel will not be involved.

The sky is purpling now, sun coming soon. Any time now the deer and squirrels will be out, stuffing themselves on the buckets of whole corn I’ve thrown. They have to fatten themselves up. Winter is coming.

Mother buggin' bugs

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 7
10/14/08
13:50

Halfway through October, and it's 70 degrees here in Minnesota. Needless to say, I'll take it. The leaves are falling, the wind is blowing, and so far this has been as nice an autumn as I can remember. One problem. Ladybugs. Our porch is closed in with 12 5-by-4 screened windows and last weekend I woke up to find every inch of the screens covered in the little orange bastards. This is INSIDE, mind you:

It sucks. Thousands of the spotted pricks. We used to keep all the doors and windows open, but now we have to button the house up because I'm afraid I'll wake up to find every surface looking like Lindsay Lohan's ass. We had this problem one fall in Akron, but nothing like we got here. I realize one cold snap will be the little buggy holocaust, but then I'll have to deal with this on a grand scale:

Even with the nice weather, they die off in legions, covering the porch floor in tiny carcasses that snap like bubble wrap when you step on them. Which wouldn't be all bad if they didn't let loose such a stank when they get crushed. The smell is something like dirt, socks and old Doritoes. Hundreds die every night, hundreds more replace them. Geh. You walk outside, something lands on the back of your neck, you swat it and now you smell like an old man’s feet. And they keep coming. Even little Tulip’s chin is susceptible:

Sigh. Bring on the winter.

Bound to happen...

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 6
10/07/08
12:47

Good god, but I’m starting to miss Akron. It’s not that I’m homesick exactly, but six weeks into the move I’m finally recognizing things about the ‘Kron that were high on my ‘cool’ list.

When we left Ohio, we left in a cloud of dust, no regrets, no looks back. Other than the odd visit, I know we ain’t ever moving back to Ohio barring some catastrophe. It’s just too nice here, too damn beautiful. When you live in a place that others come for vacations, you know you’ve chosen well.

Still.

I woke this morning with a terrible urge for a bowl of Panera’s cream of chicken and wild rice soup, a nice hunk of their bread and a good cup of Panera coffee. But ha-ha, joke’s on me because the nearest Panera is 45 minutes away. There are decent coffee shops in town, but I wanted something specific, and I couldn’t have it without wasting half a day and 20 bucks in gas. God damn, but I miss the I-77 corridor. I miss not just being able to get anywhere in 10 minutes, but three anywheres in 10 minutes. I miss Chapel Hill, Montrose and Belden. Hell, at this point I miss Rolling Acres.

Also, I miss Starbucks. I’m pretty sure Minnesota is the only place in the world where you can drive for an hour and not find a Starbucks. The ‘Bucks saturation in Akron was beyond silly, and I realize that most of you reading this are likely haters, but there’s really nothing like a nice caramel macchiato waiting practically next door on a Saturday morning. Caribou Coffee just don’t cut it.

I miss the way-too-high ratio of comic shops to square mileage. I miss Time Traveler and the Buckeye Bookshop. I miss high-speed internet access. I miss internet access at all during rainy days. I miss hearing the voices of my people, seeing faces that I already know. I miss our garden and all our flowers. I miss our little oasis amongst all that concrete. Our yard here is nicer than anything in Akron, but out here it’s just another place. I realize that this makes no sense. In time, probably soon, this place will be home. But it ain’t there yet.

On the other hand, it’s pouring as I type this and I know that when the rain is finished the bluffs will look pretty god damned amazing peeking through the mist and even during the storm there’s about fifteen things worth photographing right out my kitchen window. Oh, and this guy spends a lot of time in our front yard....

I guess it’s more than a fair trade.

Barns Bluff

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 5
9/24/08
15:00

Since this was my last free weekend before I start the job, we wanted to actually do something. So we climbed Barns Bluff in Red Wing. This bluff is basically a rocky mini-mountain that overlooks the town, the river and the rest of the bluffs around. Barns Bluff has a 2.5 mile trail made up of crumbly steps and questionable dirt pathways that wind around the hill, finally ending at the tippy-top which is 350 feet up. Nice rock walls and formations on the way, and some goddamn pretty views once you get to the top. I wish my crappy camera could do it justice. Anyway, at one point you have to pretty much climb straight up, and a misstep could see you, um, falling to your death. Possibly the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done. Totally worth it, though.

I had to work to get up there.

From the summit.

Red Wing from above.




What you don't see is that to the left of the path is a drop of 200 feet.

Darkness, take my hand

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 4

9/16/08
14:00

This house is kind of scary.

In the daytime, it’s very pleasant. Lots of natural light due to the big windows, a ton of room to maneuver due to the fact that we really don’t have enough furniture to fill the place.

But at night…different story. Those windows lead to the outside, which is where the Dark is. Where the Animals are. All this extra room on the inside? At night just places for things to hide.

Seriously. We’ve only been here three weeks, and I can’t maneuver the house just by instinct yet. The light switches are never where you think they are. And brother, this place is dark at night. I never thought I’d miss the warm glow of the Wal-Mart three streets over.

This is going to sound awfully city slicker of me, considering I grew up in Vernon, Ohio, but waking up at 3am and walking half-nekkid to the kitchen for a drink and hearing a sudden coyote howl? Right outside? Like, not ten feet on the other side of the giant picture window in the kitchen? That, my friends, will scare the shit out of you.

And having an asshole bat get into the house at two in the morning doesn’t really put you at ease.

New Zoo Review

Great White Dispatch
Notes from Damn Near Canada
No. 3

09/09/08
1400

Last night, I nearly ran over a fox in my own driveway. That about sums up what it’s like up here.

Two weeks in. Summer is over pretty much officially. While the movers were unloading our stuff, it was 95 degrees and humid. Then there was a freak afternoon thunderstorm after which the temp dropped at least 25 degrees. And that was how autumn arrived. It’s been cold as a republican’s heart ever since.

More animal business:

On the third night here, we heard a terrible screeching in the woods. Sounded like two little girls shrieking. After some investigation, we figured it out. Eagle fight. Eagle. Fight.

I have yet to actually see a coyote, but Sunday night we heard a few of them arguing over who got to raid the trash. What a terrible noise agitated coyotes make. I hope Tilly has the opportunity to kill one. Of course, for that to happen, she’d have to stand her ground instead of running away in fear. Not bloody likely.

Also Sunday, while we were eating dinner on the porch, a red tailed hawk landed on the trellis and stared us down for five minutes. Creepy and cool.

Then there’s the eight-point buck and his herd that more or less live in the back yard.

And the whole time I’ve been typing this, I’ve watched a humming bird and a bumblebee fight over the sugar water Airika put out. They keep bashing into the windows. Bumblebees. Not that smart. Hummingbirds. Possibly dumber than bumblebees.

One week in...

Great White Dispatch 2
9/01/08
22:27

One week into our Minnesota adventure (Of course, is it really an adventure if it’s permanent?) and Real Life is about to come barreling in. I have a job interview in the morning, right about the same time that our stuff will be arriving. By tomorrow night, there’s a decent chance that I’ll be gainfully employed, and a 100 percent chance that all of life’s little distractions will have finally caught back up with us. My Big Goddamn TV, all our DVDs, video games, books, clothes, and everything else will be here, filling spaces both literally and metaphorically.

In a way, even though we’ve been crazy-ass busy- running around, buying things we need to fill out this big house and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning- the weird minimalist way we’ve been living has been more relaxing than any vacation. The fact that I haven’t seen television in over a week (and haven’t really missed it) boils my mind. Our house has been filled with nothing but ourselves, the dogs, three changes of clothes (or so), the laptop, a single Ipod with speaker dock (essential), a few books, a crappy camera, a coffee pot, cereal, two quilts to sleep upon, and three flashlights (because it is DARK up here), and my guns (because it is DARK up here).

I almost wish our stuff would never show up. I like the way sounds bounce around the empty house, the way the dogs tear ass running constantly from room to room (because there’s room, they’re dogs, and hey, why the hell not?), the way we can hear every last cricket and bat and bird because, hey, what else is there to do but listen?

Two days in...

Two full days into our new lives as Minnesootans (long 'O', of course), and it really doesn’t seem real. We rolled into the driveway after a long day- 26 hours- of packing, cleaning and driving. Departed Akron at 9pm, about four hours after what was called for in The Plan. Twelve and a half hours later, we unloaded the truck in an achy, bruised haze and sacked out on the floor of our new house around 10:30. After a short nap, we saw our first critters, two young deer prancing around beside our driveway as we made the first of many long trips to the store for provisions. And we need provisions, because our stuff isn’t arriving for a week.

Now it’s Wednesday night, and what we have here exactly hasn’t sunk in yet. We’re in a big, empty house with little furniture. We have two plates, two sets of silverware, zero furniture. We’re sleeping on the floor. In two days we’ve seen nine deer, four wild turkeys, one spotted rabbit, what may have been some sort of bobcat, a ton of squirrels, bats, dragonflies and hummingbirds, and eagles. Last night, while we were admiring a young buck from across the backyard, I peeked out the bedroom window to see a bigger buck like ten feet away, nibbling at the trees.

Such a long way we are from Akron.

Between the animals, the seclusion, the total lack of anything to do, the lack of basic…things, it really feels like a vacation. But this isn’t vacation. This is our home. This is where we live, these are the animals and trees and insects and spaces we live with. I can’t imagine being happier than I am right now, right here. Every window in the house is open, and there’s a breeze flowing in from the thunderstorm kicking up across the prairie. My Ipod is quietly droning the Drive-by Truckers. Airika is messing with the checkbook, the only real work either of us has done since we arrived. Tulip and Tilly are zonked on the floor, tired from two long days or sniffing every single blade of grass they can find. This is home. I find it hard to believe.

This feeling won’t last, of course. Our belongings will arrive in a week, bringing distractions like my really big television. Decisions that are so simple right now will be complicated, because, hey, there will be more than one pair of pants to choose from in the morning. Airika starts working next week. I start serious job-hunting tomorrow. They’re coming to hook up the internet later in the week. Soon, all this freedom will be gone.

But I’m holding on as long as I can.

8/26/08-8/27/08

Great White Notes:
Dispatches from Damn Near Canada
Volume 1

8/26
18:00

I will never leave this place.

I am sitting on a bench made from a simple knotty board laid over two stumps- the only thing that could even be considered furniture in my house here in the Minnesota woods- and I am watching the sun ease down behind the grass at the back of my very own prairie.

I will never leave this place. I will doze off here, long after the sun is gone, my very good coffee has disappeared. The dew will form on my skin late in the evening and will evaporate in the early afternoon. Deer will nibble my clothes, hummingbirds will buzz my ears. Jackrabbits will bounce across my boots. But I will not leave.

Because I’m pretty sure this is as good as it can get.